


never weigh you like an anchor

by Razzaroo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 04:10:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razzaroo/pseuds/Razzaroo
Summary: Isabela has issues with permanence; Hawke is nothing if not patient.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Many Dragons (medeadea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/medeadea/gifts).



> The title comes from Heather Dale's For Guinevere, which always strikes me as very Hawke/Isabela :')

_You see, my mind takes me far_

_But my heart dreams of return_

**_Henri Cole, Twilight_ **

 

**_***_ **

 

When Isabela had been a younger, bright-eyed creature, she’d believed in happy endings. She’d believed in the idea of a true love that lasted forever, sequestered in a solid castle that evil could never breach, gleaned second hand from fairy tales heard in passing on the lips of women who were not her mother. She’d believed them as a girl because it was easier than looking at the reality of the world she lived in and taking it as her lot, than looking at the hand she’d been dealt and saying ‘ _I can survive this.’_

Growing up, she’d realised she wasn’t a woman made for permanent places, for love everlasting with a castle and a walled garden. She was born for the sea, ever changing, chasing all that glitters. Gold is all that lasts, and she builds her bones out of it, carries treasure like armour.

How convenient, then, that Hawke has quickly become Kirkwall’s golden girl.

“Here,” Isabela says, sitting on the desk in front of Hawke. She lifts one leg and rests her foot on the arm of Hawke’s chair, “Apple and elderflower. Proper stuff.”

Hawke takes the bottle of wine that Isabela offers and pops the cork free, raising the bottle to her face to sniff the contents. A dreamy look passes over her face.

“Reminds me of home,” she says, “There was someone in Lothering who used to make apple wine for the start of summer.” She catches sight of the label, “And it _is_ Fereldan!”

“That’s why I convinced Fenris to let me have it,” Isabela says, “And when I say _convinced_ I mean he paid me with it.”

“Paid you?”

“We went adventuring.”

“Without me?” Hawke’s lip juts out in a mock pout, “How could you?”

“Because you were at home, nesting,” Isabela says, teasing, and she traces the line of Hawke’s jaw with one hand, feather gentle, “Do you ever think about going back to Ferelden? Lifting anchor and just going?”

“I did once,” Hawke says. Her thumb brushed against the bottle’s label, “Not anymore. Home is here now.”

Ah. Despite Hawke being all that glitters, Isabela can only take it as a sign that longevity is not for them. Hawke is a woman who puts down roots, who settles in the earth and grows, sturdy and solid; Isabela is wind and waves and seafoam, touching one place and moving on to another. Her hand flexes against Hawke’s shoulder, feeling out the thick muscle beneath the silk of her shirt, and smiles.

“Share?” she asks, gesturing to the bottle. Hawke lets her take the first sip and the wine is cool on her tongue, sweet and floral. It feels like such a foolish, girlish thing to share between two grown women who have seen the things they’ve seen.

“How is it?” Hawke says. Isabela takes another sip, turns the taste over in her mouth.

“I’ve had worse.” Isabela sets the bottle down and eases herself into Hawke’s lap, wraps her arms around Hawke’s neck, “I think Ferelden can do better.”

Hawke’s grin curls, “You think or you know?”

Isabela could feel a hand on her thigh, warm and quiet, waiting for her to say _yes, this is what I want._ She leans in and presses a kiss against Hawke’s mouth, inviting her in, and Hawke almost melts. She feels strong arms around her, holding her close, wrapping her up in muscle and bone and endless gold. Minutes, hours, slip through their fingers like silver.

They part ways at midnight, because that’s how all stories go. Hawke kisses her on the threshold, mouth clumsy with drunkenness, smelling of apple wine.

“Another time?” she says and her words trip over each other. Her kisses are soft as breathing as Isabela steps back.

“Another time,” Isabela confirms. She appreciates it, that Hawke never asks her to stay. Staying isn’t in her blood.

Coming back is another story.

 

* * *

 

The Fade had been a treacherous place. It had bled light and pulled Isabela’s heart like a riptide. She remembers turning on Hawke, all for the sake of a _boat_ of all things, and Anders stepping between the two of them. She remembers him blazing up blue and then something hooking behind her sternum, catching the breath from her lungs and yanking her out of the Fade. She’d woken up sprawled out in the alienage, an embarrassment she might have recovered from had she not immediately retched at Sebastian’s feet.

“Come on, Rivaini,” Varric says on the third night she spends avoiding Hawke, “You can’t stay here forever.”

Isabela sticks out her tongue, “You do. Where would you want me to go?”

“Downstairs would be a start. Talk to Hawke again; she keeps asking about you.”

“I leave her wanting more.” She carefully considered his ceiling, “Would I make a good dwarf, Varric?”

“You’d make a good anything.” Varric looks at her over the edge of his glasses, “Why?”

Because dwarves like shiny things. Because dwarves don’t dream, and so can’t dwell on them. Because Isabela now envies anyone who hasn’t touched the Fade.

“Because if I was a dwarf, you might let me touch Bianca,” she says, practically purring, “I think she’d take to me.”

“Sorry, but Bianca’s a one dwarf crossbow.”

“For now. I haven’t tried seducing her yet.” Isabela leans in her chair so that she can see Bianca, propped up against the leg of Varric’s seat, “Just _imagine_ my finger on that trigger…”

There’s a cough behind them and Isabela freezes, because she knows that sound. It’s Hawke’s attempt at announcing herself politely, as if the Maker had never invented knocking. Varric grins and waves his pen.

“Good evening, Hawke,” he says, “You’re early.”

Hawke frowns, “No, you said this time.”

“Did I? Then let me get you a drink to apologise,” Varric says and he stands, taking care to tuck Bianca under the table. Isabela glowers.

“Make mine double,” she says. Treacherous bastard; dear friend. She’ll miss him, when she goes.

He pats her on the shoulder as he passes and then it’s just her and Hawke with one demon-shaped elephant sitting in the void between them. Whatever words Isabela wants to say stick in her throat, to her lips, thick and overwhelming as sea salt. Hawke’s hand is gentle on her shoulder and Isabela doesn’t shrug her away.

“Have you been avoiding me?” Hawke asks, good-humoured as ever.

“Just this conversation,” Isabela says, “I knew this was coming.” She finally looks Hawke in the eye, “I’m sorry for the Fade. It was stupid. I didn’t even get the damn ship; as if it would ever have been real.”

“Things in the Fade always seem real,” Hawke says, “Or at least Anders tells me. I don’t blame you, you know.”

Isabela hadn’t realised how much she’d wanted anger until she didn’t get it. She’d wanted it all, spitting anger, a rant like a storm; it would have made it so much easier to leave, to cut off ties and move on. She’s so unused to forgiveness.

“Damn,” she says and narrows her eyes, resisting the urge to cast her gaze down into the depths of the dust gathering in the corners, “This isn’t just a way to tempt me back to bed, is it?”

Hawke’s grin is quicksilver, “Did you need tempting?”

Isabela folds her arms over her chest and rocks back in her chair. She wants to stick her bottom lip out in a mock pout, to turn this into a game, something frivolous and breezy. She doesn’t like heavy, unless it relates to a coin purse. Instead, she sighs as Hawke beams.

“I am,” she says, letting Hawke’s hand brush her wrist, “entirely too predictable.”

 

* * *

 

When the Tome of Koslun falls into her hands, the decision is easy. She plucks it out of Wall-Eyed Sam’s hands, wrapping it up in old sack cloth, and leaves her note to Hawke in its place. It’s easier to say it all in a note; pen and ink are so much less treacherous than tongues.

‘ _Sorry Hawke,’_ she thinks, slipping through Kirkwall as easily as wind, as water, ‘ _Sorry Kirkwall.’_

The qunari will come down like a warhammer when they find out the book’s gone. She has plans to be far, far away by then, with the tome handed over to Castillon, her tracks washed away by the tide. In her mind’s eye, she sees endless sun and cities where kindness is more than a story or a memory; she’ll start with Ostwick and go from there, sail along the coast to Antiva again. The thought of seeing Zevran again calms her rattling nerves. She tucks the Tome of Koslun under her bunk, still wrapped up, and tries to ignore the golden bell that sits somewhere in her ribcage.

‘ _Hawke,’_ the little bell rings, keeps Isabela awake at night, ‘ _HawkeHawkeHawke.’_

She grits her teeth and throws herself back into the busywork of sailing. Her life revolves around ropes and rigging, the creak of the anchor lifting. She watches the sea go by as the sun sets, light dancing on the waves, and tries not to feel regret. Regret belongs to the little girl she used to be, who’d used to look at the choices she hadn’t made and wondered if they’d lead her to a better place.

Still, the past closes bony fingers around her throat and reminds her that, despite all her gold, she’s only human. Halfway to Ostwick, she turns back and retraces her steps across the sea, stepping in the footprints she’d left in sea foam. She makes it back to Kirkwall in time to see it in flames, to find Hawke almost nose to nose with Arishok on the bloodied steps inside the keep.

“Your fault,” she says to Hawke after the Arishok almost snatches the book from her, “I would never have turned around without your damned influence.”

Hawke’s grin is lopsided, “A heroic sacrifice is still a heroic sacrifice. Your reputation is in tatters.”

Isabela wants to retort, wants to throw out some remark about how her choices can still be surprises once in a blue moon, when one pulls blood from a stone and teeth from a hen’s beak. Before she can open her mouth again, the Arishok levels one of his swords at her.

“She comes with us,” he says and Isabela’s stomach suddenly feels too big for her body, rising up to butt against her tonsils.

Hawke considers the Arishok and her sword spins like a top in her hand, sharp point against the floor. Even under all the dirt and blood and detritus of Kirkwall, she gleams.

“No,” she says finally, “You have what you came for. Isabela stays here, with us.”

“Then you leave me no choice. You and I will duel and she will be the prize.”

“What? No!” Isabela steps forward, already reaching for her daggers, “If you’re duelling anyone, duel me.”

The Arishok’s gaze cuts like a knife, “You are not basalit-an. You are not worthy.”

“It’s all right, Isabela,” Hawke says. She touches one of Isabela’s earrings, gentle as springtime, “Can I?”

Isabela unfastened the earring and lets Hawke attach it to the kerchief she wears around her neck, gleaming disc of gold against the fabric. Hawke grins and drops a feather-soft kiss against Isabela’s cheek before she lifts her sword, holds her shield like a wall, and faces the Arishok. She is silk and steel. She’s everything Isabela has ever dreamed off, whether tangled in a hammock or sunk in indulgent sheets and feather pillows.

If the Maker is as real as Sebastian says, if he’s as good, Hawke won’t end up smeared across the keep, smudge of red sinking into those grime covered tiles.

“OK,” Hawke says, and she offer the Arishok a bow, ridiculous as ever, “Let’s dance.”

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, Isabela discovers a new distaste for the colour red. She roots out her rubies, her garnets, even the glasses of glittering red crystal that she kept for special occasions. She tips them out over a merchant’s counter and takes the gold he offers, uses it to pay passage out of Kirkwall on the fastest ship that takes her. The sight of Kirkwall pains her now, the stink of iron in the streets, in the keep, in the dark corners of Hawke’s manor.

The last time she sees Hawke, she leaves the favour she was given coiled under Hawke’s palm, soft pile of red silk, weighted down with her own earring.

When she reaches Antiva, she buys new earrings: silver, and set with sapphires.


	2. Chapter 2

Coming back is never easy. Isabela doesn’t know if it can be called a homecoming; that would, after all, require a home to come back to and Kirkwall could never have been hers, even without everything that she’d done wrong. It smells still, always has, and all the alcohol tastes like piss or like a rat’s bathed in it.

But there is Merrill, and that means a smile and a welcome and safe harbour in uncertain waters.

Isabela sits at Merrill’s table, tired and footsore, as Merrill patters around gather up blankets and pillows and chipped earthenware mugs. Her face is apologetic.

“Sorry they don’t match,” she says, “Hawke has all matching cups, so you’re probably used to that now, but one of mine broke and I had to replace it.”

“It’s fine, Kitten,” Isabela says and takes a grateful sip of tea, “I’ve spent the last three years drinking out of worse. I’m just glad for something clean.” Merrill smiles and Isabela aches with how much she’s missed her, missed all of them, “What’s happened since I left?”

“Oh, not much. I think Sebastian lives with Fenris now but he says he doesn’t.” Merrill’s brow pinches in a worried frown, “Anders is going grey in places. So is Hawke.”

_In the same places?_ Isabela wants to ask but the question clumps in her throat; she chokes on her tea and Merrill thumps her on the back as she sputters, the chipped cup knocked askew.

“They can brush each other’s greys out,” she says instead.

“Is that how it works?” Merrill asks, and she brushes her hand through her own hair, still glossy black, “I’ve never needed to try.”

Isabela spends the night with Merrill, the two of them curled together like vines. Merrill’s sheets smell warm and earthy; there’s lavender somewhere under her pillow, which Merrill says is meant to give sweet dreams. Isabela lies awake as Merrill’s breathing settles into sleep, soft and ghostly across Isabela’s shoulder. A summer storm rumbles overhead. Isabela can only hope it’s not a warning.

 

* * *

 

In the end, when she goes looking, Isabela can’t find Hawke. The estate is quiet; when she tries the door, usually left unlocked, it doesn’t budge and she can’t bring herself to knock. Instead, she changes direction and sets course for Fenris.

The good thing about Fenris is that he’s never surprised. When he opens the door to find her on his stoop, he only quirks one eyebrow, a talent she’d always wanted but never perfected.

“I’d heard you’d come back,” he says, stepping aside to let her in, “Though Hawke didn’t say anything before she left.”

“Left?” Isabela pauses on the threshold, “Where’s she gone?”

“Wyvern hunting, or so I’ve been told.”

She follows him through the manor and picks out all the little things that are signalling the start of home life. There’s a book left open on the table by the fireplace, along with an empty cup that looks like it recently contained tea. Damp shirts hang over the backs of chairs in front of the fire and Isabela spots a Chantry amulet that she _knows_ doesn’t belong to Fenris. Envy twinges in her chest.

She wants it too.

“Did Hawke say when she’d be back?” she asks, “There’s some things that I’ve left unsaid for a little _too_ long.”

“She didn’t.” Fenris looks towards his sword, leaning against the mantel, “If there’s something you need help with—”

“Not yet,” Isabela says, taking a seat and picking over the remains of Fenris’s breakfast, “I might take you up on it, if Hawke isn’t back in a week.”

“She will be. She’s Hawke; her fancies never last long.”

Fancies. Isabela’s used to being a fancy; she _comfortable_ being a fancy. It’s what she knows, to go from place to place on the wind, to refresh for a day or a week or a month and then move on before she’s classed as a natural disaster. Then, considering her track record in Kirkwall, maybe it’s time to accept her fate, to be a disaster and let herself be tangled up and tossed about by whatever thing she’d had with Hawke. She picks up the Chantry amulet and rubs her thumb over that gleaming gold surface.

It is, after all, a strategy that worked for Fenris.

 

* * *

 

“I didn’t think you’d come back.”

Hawke’s honey-warm in the light of the setting sun. The pair of them are on Hawke’s rooftop patio, soaking in the Kirkwall summer. Isabela’s brought apple and elderflower wine, the same she’d brought all those years ago. Hawke isn’t the bright, gleaming thing she used to be; there’s scratches in places, secret places that she lets Isabela’s clever fingers trace and work the knots out of, and definitely more grey in her hair than Isabela had imagined. But she still shines, like gold does, like stars do. She’s still beautiful.

Isabela loves to hold on to beautiful things.

“I didn’t think I’d come back,” she says, “I take it you mean during the whole qunari rampage.”

“Then and now,” Hawke says. She leans back on her hands and tips her head back to look at the sky, exposing the exquisite line of her throat, “I’m glad you did.”

“Why? So the Arishok would have a reason to fight you?”

“Oh, he’d been wanting to do that for years. Probably had the urge since I first stepped foot in his compound.” Hawke mimes punching an invisible opponent, “He was a mess waiting to happen. This whole city is a mess waiting to happen.” She looks at Isabela and her eyes are blue, so blue, like sapphires; like the sea, “But that’s not why I’m glad you came back.”

She moves closer, so they’re sitting hip to hip, one of Hawke’s arms draped casually around Isabela’s shoulders. Isabela can feel Hawke’s ribs rising with each breath, up and down; she counts the movements, grateful for every one. From her pocket, Hawke produces a roll of red silk, still pristine. With a small show of reluctance, Isabela unravels the silk and recognises the familiar weight within.

“You left some things behind,” Hawke says, “I’ve been meaning to give them back for some time now. Or at least one of them.”

She fidgets the red silk. The fabric shines in the sun. It’s a token, like in so many old stories, from a noble knight to a noble lady. Isabela could never be a noble lady; she drinks too much and runs too much and seen too many undercarriages of too many important people to handle high society with a straight face. Hawke once came close to being a knight, but Kirkwall doesn’t foster chivalry. Isabela takes the silk in hand and it’s softer than a dream; she wants to ask how long Hawke’s carried it with her.

“You can see the sea from here,” Hawke says before Isabela can ask anything, “You know, on a good day. On really good days, it even looks blue.”

Isabela looks; she can, indeed, see the sea.

“Are you trying to say something, Hawke?” she says, “Kirkwall’s a port city. I can see the sea anytime.”

“Are you leaving anytime soon?”

“Leaving Kirkwall?” After Hawke nods, Isabela rolls her shoulders and downs the last of the wine, “Not for a while. I still don’t have a ship, remember.”

“Stay with me?” Hawke asks. It’s not begging; it’s not pleading. The red silk flutters in the breeze, “Not forever. I know you’re not a stay in one place forever person. But if you want, we can be some stay together for a long time people.”

Isabela’s quiet for a beat before she laughs, “It’s better than my first proposal.”

Hawke smiles when Isabela offers her arm. The silk is warm and gentle against Isabela’s skin, tight enough to be binding, with a tidy knot that will be easy to pull free. Isabela touches the fabric, light enough that her fingertips only brush it, and feels her smile soften.

She’d almost forgotten how well red suited her.


End file.
